


For Auld Lang Syne

by upon_a_time



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Holidays, M/M, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4127503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/upon_a_time/pseuds/upon_a_time
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's been staring at the blinking cursor of his blog since half seven. </p><p>Now, one curry takeaway, an overheard phone conversation between Mrs. Hudson and her sister in Devonshire, the last half of a godawful BBC One New Year's Eve concert special, two cups of tea, and four hours later, he's still staring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Auld Lang Syne

_We two have run about the slopes,_  
_and picked the daisies fine;_  
_But we’ve wandered many a weary foot,_  
_since auld lang syne._

 _For auld lang syne, my dear,_  
_for auld lang syne,_  
_we'll take a cup of kindness yet,_  
_for auld lang syne._

_Auld Lang Syne, Robert Burns, 1788_

| | | | |

11:32pm, 31 December 2011

221B Baker Street, Marylebone, London

| | | | |

John's been staring at the blinking cursor of his blog since half seven.

Now, one curry takeaway, an overheard phone conversation between Mrs. Hudson and her sister in Devonshire, the last half of a godawful BBC One New Year's Eve concert special, two cups of tea, and four hours later, he's still staring.

| | | | |

John notes every blink of the cursor like a heartbeat, like a breath in and out of his lungs. He can't stop. Doesn't know if he wants to.

Time, John can track. It’s grounding, and practical, and useful, all things John aspires to be or accepts that he is. As a child, he waited impatiently for time to pass, for school holidays and football matches and good, happy things. But John hasn't been young for an age now, and doesn't measure his life in joy.

Three years ago, in Afghanistan, he counted the days of his deployment. Each night he carved a tally into the side of his bedpost, worn soft by the windblown grit and sand. The canvas flaps of his tent couldn't stop the desert any more than he could stop a draining artery shredded by an IED. He remembers them all. Every life lost, for Queen and country and a fucking war that was never theirs to begin with. Every soldier he couldn't save. This tally, he raked on his heart.

When he returned to London, he counted the steps from his flat to the grocery to the NIH wellness clinic (too many), the pounds in his dwindling bank account (too few), and the days he woke up wishing that he hadn't (all). John counted the remaining bullets in his standard-issue, illegally-kept Glock and limped towards a steady aim and one final pull of a trigger.

Three weeks and six days later, he met Sherlock. In one rise and one set of the sun, John's life changed.

John's aware of the minutes between now and the next tube, the number of days until rent's due, the hours he's scheduled to work down at the clinic. He knows the seconds (at least 2, no more than 5) he'll be permitted to think through the evidence presented at a crime scene. He knows the number of days Sherlock can stay awake when he's on a case (3, if experiencing visual hallucinations qualifies as "awake") and the number of hours it takes (an average of 1) for his legs to fall asleep crouched in a damp alleyway waiting to apprehend yet another inept criminal. He knows the number of Sherlock's experiments claiming their fridge (4), the kitchen table (2), the microwave (surprisingly, for such a limited space, 6). John knows the number of minutes before Scotland Yard appears following gun shots (in Belgravia, 2; in Hackney, 7) and how many days Mycroft can go without sending a car round with Anthea to politely demand information on Sherlock's general state of well-being (the record is 21).

John may see but not observe, and he may be an idiot ( _No no no, don't be like that. Practically everyone is_ ), but he does at least usually know what day it is, what time it is, and what he's waiting for, late to, rushing towards.

| | | | |

But John doesn't know anymore.

It's been one month, two weeks, four days, twelve hours, and thirty nine minutes since Sherlock jumped from the roof of St. Bart's.

Sherlock's funeral was four days later, in a quiet Victorian graveyard (30 minutes drive up the M6 away from London's north fringes, 45 with traffic) under a cloudless sky. John remembers a small chapel, a closed casket, empty pews and silence.

It's been one month, two weeks, four days, twelve hours, and thirty nine minutes since John's life ended, too.

| | | | |

Forty-two days that felt like decades have crawled by. John marks time by the falling number of press camped by the bins of 221B Baker Street (29 the first week, now 0, directly proportional to the status of the Met's investigation and the public's thirst for blood).

John's stopped seeing his therapist. Doesn’t think he can keep opening his mouth to speak without his chest cracking open. The only platitude John heard from her over and over, through the echoes in his mind of _stay exactly where you are/don't move/please will you do this for me_ , was to take life one day at a time.

So, he does. He keeps track of what he needs to do to appear fine and functioning. He goes through the motions.

John wakes up at 7:00am, most days. He walks to work and slogs through the hours until his locum shift ends. Then he rides the train until the underground closes and walks home to his ( _their_ ) flat at Baker Street. On his days off, he does the weekly shop at Tesco. Sometimes, he meets Greg at his local for long silences swallowed by a pint. Every day, John limps a little more.

He’s thought about moving house. Planned out a block of flats closer to the clinic, which of his things could go to charity shops and which in the bin. But then he thinks about boxing up Sherlock’s things and the joint possessions littering the flat that are their two lives woven together. The kettle, purchased with five quid of his and four of Sherlock’s after the first one was used in a questionable experiment involving beetles and the second one was pilfered to store what John was fairly certain was loose gunpowder. The takeaway menus stuck to the fridge, reached for when it was loaded with body parts from the morgue or when Sherlock was between cases and willing to waste time on a meal. The postcards John sent from the holidays Sherlock would never go on and never ask about, but would always carefully prop up on the bookshelf behind his chair.

Each time John thinks of separating the physical pieces of them, he sits down on the couch and looks at the untouched flat waiting for both inhabitants to come in, sit down, have a cup of tea and keep living a life that’s not been snatched away and thinks, _No, let me just have this. Let me have this for a little longer_.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees the dark gape of bullet holes in the wall, a monument to one of Sherlock’s bored tantrums. They pierce straight through the beams, the plaster, the garish wallpaper, the jumper covering his chest and threaten to collapse the resolve that's just barely holding him together.

John won't count the nights he lets the flat grow dark as he stares at the empty armchairs curved toward each other in the sitting room. He tells himself it's because each day is the last he will allow himself to be that bloody pathetic, but he knows the truth of it lies in the futility of measuring infinity. Instead, he tries to remember how to draw breath into his lungs and square his shoulders. How to carry on.

| | | | |

On Christmas Day, John doesn’t leave the flat. He makes a cup of tea he doesn’t drink (again) and a plate of toast he doesn’t eat (again). He closes all the curtains and opens the door to Sherlock’s room.

He stands silent in the doorway before slowly stepping in. The room is cold, shadows flickering and wavering as rain spits down the window. Weak gray light filters in through the glass and washes the color from the wallpaper, the art, John’s clothes, his skin.

The bed, the nightstand, the dresser are covered in the lightest sheen of dust. John knows the shirts, trousers, pants, socks will all be organized in their designated spaces, folded and pressed and pristine, probably organized by fabric content or absurd expense or which are most likely to woo Molly into letting Sherlock knick supplies from the laboratory.

John has a sudden wild urge to run his hands through every single drawer, touching and rifling and disturbing their contents into disarray. He wants to drag his fingers through the dust and leave his own broken mark on the ghost of what was/what could have been/what will never be.

He sits carefully on the edge of Sherlock’s bed, hands clasped in his lap and spine painfully straight. John will tell himself later that he’s okay with how long (at least 5 minutes) he managed to maintain composure. John won’t tell himself he’s lying.

He lets himself lay on Sherlock’s bed, puts his face into the pillows, fingers digging into the duvet and the sheets as if clinging to the mattress is the only thing keeping John from shattering.

He curls into himself, pulls the blankets over his head, and breathes, gasping in-and-out, in-and-out. He stays there through the night. John won’t let himself count the number of times he jerks out of sleep with his cheeks wet and eyes burning. The next day, he gets up, makes the bed, and shuts the door behind him.

| | | | |

John doesn't update his blog. Tonight is the first night he’s logged in for six weeks. He can't stand to read the comments, old and new, posted by believers and nonbelievers. The number counter is still broken, frozen before his life of welcome chaos burned into madness.

He can't bring himself to write, to acknowledge in white text on a black page that Sherlock is dead. He can’t post it, publish it for the world to see. He used to think of his blog as a chore, then as a way to share his life of mad sidekick to consulting detective. It became, unexpectedly, a public declaration of a private joy. Now, he’s not sure what it is.

John hears the 10-9-8-7-6 countdown on the telly, the dull distant roar of celebrating neighbors, tracks it in time with the blink of his cursor.

5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |

John types. Clicks _Update_ before he can convince himself to wait another day, week, month.

_The Blog of John H. Watson_

_New Post 12:01am, 1 January 2012_

_0 comments_

"For S. Happy New Year."


End file.
